Understanding Adjectives

Adjectives are describing words. They give more information about nouns. Adjectives can describe certain qualities like size, color, age, opinions and feelings. Adjectives make your language more interesting because they show what a noun is like.

Descriptor is another word for adjective. You can remember it because it has the word "describe" in it.

What is the adjective in the following sentence? The affectionate cat jumped on my lap.

• The

• affectionate

• jumped

• lap

Some adjectives that describe size are massive, enormous, gargantuan, mammoth, elephantine, microscopic, minuscule and Lilliputian.

Which of the following sentences uses the size adjective "massive" correctly?

• Up ahead, the massive mountain loomed above them.

• The mountain is massive at only 3,000 years old.

• Beside the mountain, what had once been a beautiful lodge now had a dirty, massive look.

• The mountain was the same massive color as the sky.

If you say that the girl sitting on the other side of the classroom is funny, you're describing her with an adjective. Other people might not agree that she is funny, so that makes funny an opinion adjective. Some other adjectives that describe opinions include delicious, terrible, pretty and weird.

Which of the following sentences uses an opinion adjective?

• The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean in the world.

• Viktor thought that his pet pig was the most intelligent animal in the world.

• Liz waited for her dinner in the largest room of the house.

• The man strutted down the street in a gold suit.

How are you feeling? Whether you're happy, sad, excited, exhausted, bored or energetic, you'll answer with an adjective.

What is the feeling adjective in the following sentence?

The inspired artist painted beautiful ocean waves after her trip to the beach.

• inspired

• ocean

• trip

• beach

Old, young, antique, modern and newborn are all adjectives that can be used to describe the age of a person, place, thing or idea.

What is the age adjective in the following sentence?

The palace was a modern building with electrical outlets and WiFi.

• palace

• modern

• electrical

• outlets

In which of the following sentences is the word "maroon" used as an adjective?When you describe something’s color, you’re using an adjective. That includes the colors of the rainbow—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet—and more specific shades, like chartreuse and crimson. However, when you’re referring to these colors themselves, you’re using those color words as nouns.

In which of the following sentences is the word "maroon" used as an adjective?

• I like the color maroon because it makes me think of autumn leaves.

• Lee wanted a pair of maroon sneakers for his birthday.

• The flood could maroon the family on their roof.

• I plan to paint my bedroom walls the color maroon.

Adjectives can also describe shape, origin and material. Some shape adjectives include square, triangular, oblong and short. Origin adjectives, like Italian, African, Thai and American, describe where someone or something is from. Material adjectives, like wooden, silver and gold, describe what something is made of.

Which of the following sentences uses a material adjective?

• Thurmond used a strange key to open the treasure box.

• The sofa was awkward and wouldn’t fit through the door.

• Dorinda studied dance for many years before she made her debut.

• Tao dreamed of wearing a silken robe to the pajama party.

Adjectives usually come before nouns. It's "the big bad wolf" and not "the wolf big bad." Similarly, you'd say "the silly young boy" and not "the boy silly young." Adjectives can come after nouns when the verb "to be" follows the noun, though. So, you could say, "The wolf is big bad," or the boy was silly and young.

Which sentence uses adjectives in the correct order?

• I couldn’t bring myself to swallow the oyster slimey, so I only pretended to eat it.

• The soda sugary spilled on the sidewalk and left a sticky stain.

• Hakim is resourceful and is usually able to solve a problem.

• You can count on Deborah forgetful to always lose her car keys.

An adjective can often describe intensity if you add an "-er" or "-est" to the end. An adjective with an "-er" at the end, like "faster," is a comparative adjective. It’s comparing one thing to another and tells you that something is more intense than something else. When you add "-est" to the end of an adjective, it becomes a superlative, like "fastest." The "-est" means that something is the most intense.

Which sentence describes Mylene as the most clever student in her class?

• "You’re clever, Mylene," Hanna said, "but not as clever as Rianna."

• Mylene was as clever as her older brother, Jack.

• Mylene was the cleverest of all the fifth graders at school, and she always raised her hand first to answer the teacher's questions.

• Mylene preferred to think of herself as nonclever, even though she was clever enough to know that wasn’t a real word.

When you are using more than one adjective to describe a noun, the different types of adjectives always go in a specific order. The order is always opinion, size, shape, age, color, origin and material. For example, you would say "the ugly old green German car." It wouldn't sound correct to say "the old ugly German green car."

Which sentence uses more than one adjective in the correct order?

• The wooden, Chinese, old, small box is very important.

• On the wall was a new, little, French, red, oval mirror that he admired.

• Laleh is known for weaving beautiful, blue, Persian rugs.

• Our favorite, brick, modern, large school stood at the end of the street.